


pieces and parts (and none of them yours)

by hushlittlewolf



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 2nd POV, Freeform, M/M, Prose Poem, bucky pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 00:09:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1837189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hushlittlewolf/pseuds/hushlittlewolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things that the Winter Soldier remembers. Things that he forgets. </p><p>They are one in the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pieces and parts (and none of them yours)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not really sure what this is. i have a lot of bucky feels and felt like writing some poetry. 
> 
> come cry with me about the winter soldier on tumblr: http://the-wild-wolves-around-you.tumblr.com/

(It comes to you in pieces. It comes to you in parts.)

 

 

 **I.** A flutter at the corner of your vision, like the flicker of smoke

or the fall of cold snow.

You turn— but there is nothing. The knife in your palm trembles,

finely, like the air before an earthquake, the calm before the storm.

But you are made of metal and sinew and winter, and you were made to endure.

 

The throat beneath your fingers opens wide and red and wet.

 

 **II.** You are standing in the ashes of your latest assignment.

Fires burn unchecked, but you don’t feel them.

You walk amongst the bodies of your enemies, slow and measured,

and put a bullet in each of their heads to make sure.

 

The last one is still alive.

 

He begs you for his life; he cries; he pisses himself.

The bullet catches him in the throat

mid supplication,

and his reedy voice stutters into a whine,

then a startled gasp,

before fading into a deep, gurgling hum.

 

The hum resonates long after he stops breathing.

It’s soft, almost distant, like it’s coming from a radio

half way across the world. The noise grows louder,

louder,

until it’s a song.

 

Muted horns blare.

A soundless voice croons.

It’s a jaunty tune.

Somehow you know

this song was made to dance to in big halls

with a pretty woman on each arm.

 

Your tongue twitches.

Your teeth ache.

Something quivers along the fault lines of the world—

and then corrects itself.

 

The mission is completed, and you return as you are bidden.

 

(And so it goes.)

 

 **III.** It happens again. It keeps happening.

 

You’re sighting down the barrel of a rifle,

and suddenly there’s the smell of popcorn and

cotton candy. The ghost of laughter vibrates in your bones.

You abruptly, and with such conviction,

know the name and appearance of a Ferris Wheel,

and what it feels like to be so close to the sun.

 

You’re tracking your next target—a couple in a sporty,

sleek car—when something pulls at your thoughts,

insistent.

You shake it away, but it’s pressing, nagging, the tip of your tongue

burning like it’s caught the start of a name half remembered.

You think it begins with an _H_ or maybe an _S_.

But then the couple drives into range, and they are your mission.

Moments later,

they are swallowed by an inferno.

 

You’re perching on a rooftop, trying to find the best vantage point,

when you catch sight of the skyline

bathed in sunset’s orange.

Something in you says the word _beautiful_

but you don’t understand it’s meaning.

Something else in you says that this image—right here—

would make a beautiful drawing,

but as your fingers pull the trigger again and again,

you know it can’t be your hands to draw it.

 

 **IV.** You’re pinning your prey to the bare walls

of a motel room, and the metal of your fingers is digging into the pale curve

of a gasping neck. But then, all of the sudden, blue eyes are staring up at you

through strands of hair the color of sunset, of gold,

the color of summer.

Your fingers go lax before you tell them,

drop to a shoulder blade before you can stop them,

and they’ve just started rubbing circles—soft and small and soothing—

when your other hand slides a knife between the target’s ribs.

 

It’s not until after you’ve disposed of the body

that you wonder about the concept of

muscle memory

and how the body can remember something

the brain did not.

Something that never existed at all, in fact,

because you are winter,

you were born of ice and snow,

and you do not know the heat of summer

working on wooden docks

or trapped in small apartments.

 

(The incidents are always different, always new.

The only constant is the persistent feeling

that something is missing.)

 

 

 **V.** (It’s not until you begin to see

blue eyes and blonde hair on every target,

on every face in a crowd, that you realize.

 

It’s not some _thing_ missing. It’s some _one_.)

 

 

 **VI.** They find out after you nearly fail a mission.

When you return, They ask you questions with blood

still caked under your fingernails. They run tests; you give your mission statement.

They ask if there is anything else to report and you,

you do not know to lie.

 

You mention the flutter—the flicker,

the pause of breath between capturing the target

and eliminating her, the songs jangling through your bones,

the words and names burning your tongue, the faceless figures

dancing always beyond reach —and you know instantly

you should not have said anything.

 

More of Them flood the room: white coats and men in suits.

They are angry. You do not know why. The tests they run next are

crueler, more vicious.

You bite through your tongue with 2000 volts of electricity burning up your veins.

Blood clogs your throat, and you can’t breathe.

 

You can’t breathe, you _can’t breathe, youcan’tbreatheyoucan’tbreathe_

 

Я тону, you shout. Я тону.

 

But it’s suddenly snow in your mouth, water in your lungs, ice

between your teeth. You shout, and you cry, you gasp for breath,

and all the while

the river carries you away.

 

Because you are drowning in a river

and the flicker in your peripheral vision

is falling snow and falling ice and you,

tumbling through the air,

_f r e e f a l l._

 

 

 **VII.** They haul you off the table, stick you upright

in a metal coffin. They mutter as they strap you in,

angry words, disappointed words that make no sense to you now.

 

_Compromised again._

 

_It’s not working like it used to._

 

_It’s become unreliable._

 

_The next mission will probably be it’s last._

 

The coffin door is slammed shut and, somehow,

your body knows what is about to happen

even if you don’t.

 

Water slides down your cheek and it is sweat,

it is tears,

it is brackish river.

 

 

 **VIII.** Machinery begins to whirl and

you look through the window before you.

You look through the face you don’t know that stares back.

You look through time and the fabric of reality—

and there it is.

 

A train in the mountains.

 

There’s a man clinging to the side and—ah—finally.

A face.

He is yelling, but the wind turns his words into nothing.

Still, you stare at the white of his teeth, the red of his mouth,

the blue of his lips.

 

You know him.

_You know him._

 

He is the something missing.

The ghost that would not let you be.

You know it as sure as anything.

 

 

 **VIV.** He reaches out a hand to you, and you reach back,

but the clank of metal fingers on glass

puts you back in the coffin

puts you back in your place.

 

Just as the ice descends, you remember the man’s name.

 

_Steve._

 

 

 **X.** And then you remember nothing

once more.

 

 

(It comes to you in pieces. It comes to you in parts.)

(You don’t get to keep any of them.)


End file.
